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Tuesday 4 January 2011

Bashô's Frog


.

File:Wasserfrosch.jpg

Common Water Frog (Rana esculenta): photo by Holger Gröschl, 2003


古池や
蛙飛び込む
水の音



The old pond:
A frog jumps in,—
The sound of the water.




File:MatsuoBasyoSeika.jpg

Birthplace of Bashô Matsuo, Iga Province, Japan
: photo by Ultratornio, 2005


Bashô (1644-1694): frog haiku, translated by Reginald Horace Blyth (1898-1964)

8 comments:

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Thanks for this green frog, the sound of water in pond, and Creeley's "persistent rain" ----


1.4

orange edge of sun behind black branches
of trees, motion of green leaf on branch
in foreground, sound of waves in channel

one thing is that, to be in
words the relation to

a gesture, coming across an
area, point to staged

silver of sunlight reflected in channel,
white cloud in pale blue sky on horizon

Julia said...

Yes, thank you, this helps :-)
Lovely frog. He/she is proudly staring at us after dive into water, ¡splash!
I remember one translation of Basho's haiku in which the last verse was something like this: splash, sound of water. But I don't remember if it was in Spanish or English (and I can't look up now ¡I have to work!)

The ripple effect...Mmm. Who initiated it?

Anonymous said...

This brightens this bright day. That frog feels like a friend. My copy of Basho is currently out of reach on a high shelf. Thank you for bringing it to me.

Ed Baker said...

so many frogs
in one pond
croaking

old poet
old frog
old pond
.....PLOP!

far beyond sound frog leaps
far beyond frog sound leaps

Old Poet
sitting beside the pond
eating fried frogs' legs



( I jus cldn't resist... so much for my Knew Year's Resolution!!!!)

TC said...

Sweet echoes, spreading ripples and bright reflections...


That frog feels like a friend.

(Indeed, then it must be one.)


so many frogs
in one pond
croaking

(Yes, here we all are.)


sound of waves in channel
silver of sunlight reflected in channel

(Part of the frog's "world picture", too?)

(And by the by, Steve, my indelible "frog memory" dates back to the great El Niño flood winter of '68-'69 in "pre-developed" Bo-Town, a vacant field on Nymph [!] Road, turned into a sea of frogs, a pond becoming a chorus of swelling song... )


Which puts one in mind of...

The ripple effect...Mmm. Who initiated it?

I think that great initiator can only have been Dame Nature!

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Tom,

Yes, the frogs are out there, at it again, once it gets dark -- Nymph Road's "sea of frogs" is probably still there. . . .

TC said...

...and I think I can almost hear them singing... as the waves wash in...

(No, back down to "earth" -- the present, clunk! -- that's just the whooshing-past of the late night traffic, again.)

Ed Baker said...

the "woosh" that I heard when camping in an Arizona
desert
just me & that ...sound-wave

http://edbaker.maikosoft.com/shrike/26.html

which led me to the ending of some Magnificent poem that I wrote but can't remember:


after
all

it s
only

one
wave


(one of these daze I shall mmwemorize some-thing
however, mere activities are precluded by my actions/reactions ...

so, no Real "teacher" is needed...

sort-of an "who's on first" (Abbott & Costello) kind of ....
way ?)